Bosnia and Herzegovina

Few national anthems carry their politics so openly. Intermeco is wordless by design. After the Bosnian War, the country's three constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) could not agree on a text for any anthem, so on 25 June 1999 the international High Representative, Carlos Westendorp, used his Bonn powers to impose the Law on the National Anthem after the Parliamentary Assembly failed to legislate one. The chosen melody, by Bosnian Serb composer Dusan Sestic, replaced "Jedna si jedina," arranged in 1992 by the singer Dino Merlin, which Croat and Serb politicians refused to recognise. Sestic and Benjamin Isovic later wrote unifying lyrics, "Ti si svjetlo duse," approved by a parliamentary commission in 2009; ethnic vetoes have kept them from formal adoption. The silence is the compromise.